Romania 14 February 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011 by Sora Jay
Hi everybody,
Happy Valentines Day. Here they call it "the day of the people that fall in love" which makes it an even more awkward holiday for missionaries. I think we are going to go shoot each other with airsoft guns today.
This city seems much more well-off than any of the other cities that I've been too, and people seem more educated, but nobody here knows about us. In Bucharest if I asked anybody on the street if they had heard about 'mormons' they would have. But here there are tons of people that have never heard of us at all. We talked to the husband of one member and he told us that during communism there was a little film that he remembered watching that showed a 'mormon' with a big beard and a tall hat with bushy hair with all of his wives and tons of children. But apparently even that film died because none of the young people here know anything about us. We were knocking a bloc last night and some lady answered the door and started going crazy, "There's only one God!" she said and we said "That's right." But she kept going crazy and saying "You're so young, remember what I say to you: there's only one God, leave this nonsense. You're so young, remember what I'm saying to you." And she held up two fingers and said, "It's not like this, there's only one God." And she muttered something about Jehovah's witnesses and Pharises, and told us to remember what she said to us and closed the door (and the whole time her husband was telling her to close the door because the cold was getting inside). I probably will remember what she said, but only because she was crazy and didn't know what she was talking about. It was really funny.
As we were contacting on the street we stopped a college-age girl and started telling her about the restoration, and she asked "Are you guys happy because of this message or is that just how you naturally are?" She told us she was studying psychology, and she seemed astonished by how happy we were. The only thing that she would accept was a pamphlet, but before she left she seemed to change her mind and said she wanted to help us with anything that she could and gave us her phone number. Usually anybody who has studied psychology is somewhat atheist, I guess because of the way that they teach it here, and they say that if you want a response from a prayer badly enough your mind will create one. We talked to a high school girl who said she was atheist (but they always still say they believe in God) and eventually she said "What is the purpose of this discussion, what are you trying to accomplish?" She asked it in a nice way though, and I told her that she was valuable to God and that he wanted to hear from her, and that's why we were still talking to her even though she said she was atheist. She seemed pleased. Then all of her friends showed up and we gave them pliants and pass-along cards so that they would know about 'mormons' the next time somebody contacted them.
I guess I've gotten used to the accent here, I don't notice it anymore unless somebody has a really extreme one. And I'll be talking in church next week so all of them members can get used to my accent. People on the streets understand me just fine.
I've noticed in the past few months that most missionaries are terrible at the language. What you do during your language study time is really important.
We went to some military housing, because some lady that we contacted said that she lives there and told us to come over some evening (she gave us her husband's phone number too but it's always off), so we went over there and walked into the building and stood there awkwardly because we knew that somebody had to let us in so that we could be in there. Some lady eventually came over to us and asked us what we were doing Sora Puckett started to explain and she said "You guys are foreigners aren't you, I can tell from your accent. You're not allowed to be in this building." And we said "we know we're just looking for this family" but she told us we had to get out. We made her go check to see if the family was at home though, and she said they weren't. I think it's dumb that they wouldn't let us even be inside of the building just because we were foreigners. If we actually wanted to cause any damage or chaos we wouldn't actually have to enter, so to me it seems like a silly rule. We tried another time to see if they were there, and the people told us again that we couldn't go inside, and we said "we know, that's why we're not inside" but they told us several more times anyway. I guess they are proud of the fact that foreigners can't enter their bloc. In a different bloc some guy asked to see my I.D. so I pulled out my visa and showed it to him he said "well, this could be fake" and he asked if I had a 'buletin' which is the standard I.D. for Romanians. And I said "I'm American, obviously I don't have a 'buletin'," and he shrugged and told us to be careful.
It's funny how the regular people try to mess with us, because when we went to the city building to get permission to set up a table/display on the street and do contacting the city people were all really professional and nice to us and didn't ask to see our visas or anything. One of the guards actually walked us all the way to the office we needed to go to to get our permission slip. It happened to be closed right then but he told us that's where we would have to go.
Anyway, right now Sora Puckett and I are going to be doing a lot of contacting because we don't really have any solid investigators. I found out that Alin got baptized though. That's really cool, because I taught him. All of the other people I have baptized were taught by other missionaries before me and I re-found them and re-taught them, but Alin I taught from scratch. I hope he turns out to be an awesome member.
Enjoy your giant, pink, heart-shaped cookies. Maybe I can find some sort of replacement for one of them here.
Love,
Sora Jay
Happy Valentines Day. Here they call it "the day of the people that fall in love" which makes it an even more awkward holiday for missionaries. I think we are going to go shoot each other with airsoft guns today.
This city seems much more well-off than any of the other cities that I've been too, and people seem more educated, but nobody here knows about us. In Bucharest if I asked anybody on the street if they had heard about 'mormons' they would have. But here there are tons of people that have never heard of us at all. We talked to the husband of one member and he told us that during communism there was a little film that he remembered watching that showed a 'mormon' with a big beard and a tall hat with bushy hair with all of his wives and tons of children. But apparently even that film died because none of the young people here know anything about us. We were knocking a bloc last night and some lady answered the door and started going crazy, "There's only one God!" she said and we said "That's right." But she kept going crazy and saying "You're so young, remember what I say to you: there's only one God, leave this nonsense. You're so young, remember what I'm saying to you." And she held up two fingers and said, "It's not like this, there's only one God." And she muttered something about Jehovah's witnesses and Pharises, and told us to remember what she said to us and closed the door (and the whole time her husband was telling her to close the door because the cold was getting inside). I probably will remember what she said, but only because she was crazy and didn't know what she was talking about. It was really funny.
As we were contacting on the street we stopped a college-age girl and started telling her about the restoration, and she asked "Are you guys happy because of this message or is that just how you naturally are?" She told us she was studying psychology, and she seemed astonished by how happy we were. The only thing that she would accept was a pamphlet, but before she left she seemed to change her mind and said she wanted to help us with anything that she could and gave us her phone number. Usually anybody who has studied psychology is somewhat atheist, I guess because of the way that they teach it here, and they say that if you want a response from a prayer badly enough your mind will create one. We talked to a high school girl who said she was atheist (but they always still say they believe in God) and eventually she said "What is the purpose of this discussion, what are you trying to accomplish?" She asked it in a nice way though, and I told her that she was valuable to God and that he wanted to hear from her, and that's why we were still talking to her even though she said she was atheist. She seemed pleased. Then all of her friends showed up and we gave them pliants and pass-along cards so that they would know about 'mormons' the next time somebody contacted them.
I guess I've gotten used to the accent here, I don't notice it anymore unless somebody has a really extreme one. And I'll be talking in church next week so all of them members can get used to my accent. People on the streets understand me just fine.
I've noticed in the past few months that most missionaries are terrible at the language. What you do during your language study time is really important.
We went to some military housing, because some lady that we contacted said that she lives there and told us to come over some evening (she gave us her husband's phone number too but it's always off), so we went over there and walked into the building and stood there awkwardly because we knew that somebody had to let us in so that we could be in there. Some lady eventually came over to us and asked us what we were doing Sora Puckett started to explain and she said "You guys are foreigners aren't you, I can tell from your accent. You're not allowed to be in this building." And we said "we know we're just looking for this family" but she told us we had to get out. We made her go check to see if the family was at home though, and she said they weren't. I think it's dumb that they wouldn't let us even be inside of the building just because we were foreigners. If we actually wanted to cause any damage or chaos we wouldn't actually have to enter, so to me it seems like a silly rule. We tried another time to see if they were there, and the people told us again that we couldn't go inside, and we said "we know, that's why we're not inside" but they told us several more times anyway. I guess they are proud of the fact that foreigners can't enter their bloc. In a different bloc some guy asked to see my I.D. so I pulled out my visa and showed it to him he said "well, this could be fake" and he asked if I had a 'buletin' which is the standard I.D. for Romanians. And I said "I'm American, obviously I don't have a 'buletin'," and he shrugged and told us to be careful.
It's funny how the regular people try to mess with us, because when we went to the city building to get permission to set up a table/display on the street and do contacting the city people were all really professional and nice to us and didn't ask to see our visas or anything. One of the guards actually walked us all the way to the office we needed to go to to get our permission slip. It happened to be closed right then but he told us that's where we would have to go.
Anyway, right now Sora Puckett and I are going to be doing a lot of contacting because we don't really have any solid investigators. I found out that Alin got baptized though. That's really cool, because I taught him. All of the other people I have baptized were taught by other missionaries before me and I re-found them and re-taught them, but Alin I taught from scratch. I hope he turns out to be an awesome member.
Enjoy your giant, pink, heart-shaped cookies. Maybe I can find some sort of replacement for one of them here.
Love,
Sora Jay
NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.
Posts
